Want the best of the best to flood your department with their résumés as they do at Yahoo! and Southwest Airlines? Develop your talent brand, says Libby Sartain, who was CHRO at both companies.
Brand for Talent, Sartain’s new book co-written with consultant Mark Schumann, offers seven "essentials" for building your talent brand. (See yesterday’s issue for the first five essentials.)
Essential 6: Sustain
The talent brand must be sustained, say Sartain and Schumann, and to a large degree, that is accomplished as a result of the culture.
Culture is an amalgam of what workers experience, the words and actions of leaders, the face-to-face interactions, the products and services delivered by HR, and the messages and content of employee communications.
Essential 7: Survive
It used to be that branding was primarily controlled by the company and its marketing. Consumers had only limited opportunity to criticize the brand. And this was true for talent as well. Sure, there were a few disgruntled workers, and some complained and a few sued, but for the most part, dissatisfaction with employers’ brands was contained and of little concern.
Enter social media. Immediate access to limitless networks for people to instantly share any idea with millions of others. Companies will have to work hard to preserve their brands against faceless rumors and complaints.
BLR’s SmartPolicies supplies 350 HR policies, prewritten for you, and ready to customize or use as is. Examine it at no cost or risk.
The End Result of Branding for Talent
Sartain and Schumann offer the following outcomes for those who carefully and diligently develop their talent brands:
- The new marketplace for talent will have a clear understanding of why someone should work for you.
- You will become a magnet for talent.
- You will increase the number of people who want to work for you.
- You will target the segments of the talent marketplace.
- Your sourcing strategy will look more like a consumer marketing strategy.
- You will be able to filter your candidates to meet your desired profiles.
- You will streamline your talent acquisition programs and processes.
- Your recruiters will finally move beyond the order-filler role.
- You will give your internal communications new purpose.
- You will give your leadership a new voice.
- You can redefine your relationship with your workers.
- You can establish a talent brand legacy at your organization.
Policies Are the Cornerstone
The marketplace for workers is changing and so is the workplace they’ll join. We’ve just seen major changes to the Family and Medical Leave Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, military leave, accommodation rules—the list of new policy requirements seems endless. But you can’t backburner work on your policies—they’re your only hope for consistent and compliant management that avoids lawsuits.
You need policies that are carefully crafted, legally reviewed, and regularly updated. But it’s no small task to write and update the dozens of policies that any organization requires.
Our editors have a suggestion that will help you do it, with a minimum of cost and effort.
It’s a remarkable program called SmartPolicies. Its expert authors have already worked through the critical issues on some 100 essential policy topics, prewritten the policies for you, and tested them at thousands of companies over time.
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In all, SmartPolicies contains some 350 policies covering those topics, arranged alphabetically, from Absenteeism and Blogging, to Cell Phone Safety, Voice Mail, and Workers’ Compensation. What’s more, the CD format makes these policies easily customized. Just add your company specifics or use as is.
Equally important, as regulations and court decisions clarify your responsibilities on workplace issues, the policies are updated with new ones, added as needed every quarter, as a standard part of the program.
SmartPolicies is available to HR Daily Advisor subscribers on a 30-day evaluation basis at no cost or risk … even for return postage. If you’d like to have a look at it, we’ll be happy to arrange it.
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